Part 2 (2/2)
”Coincidence again, Henry, that is all Hoas I to know you would be outside Ned Aiken's house while I ithin?”
”And how should I know that paternal care would prompt you to remain within while I ithout?”
For a second it seeh--for a fraction of a second so like astonishment seemed to take possession of him Then Brutus appeared in the doorway
”My son,” he said, as I followed him to supper, ”I must compliment you
Positively you improve upon acquaintance”
III
I had remembered him as a man who disliked talk I had often seen hi in particular, with his expressionless serenity But on this particular evening the day's activities appeared to have made his social instincts vividly assertive, and to arouse him to unusual, and almost unnatural animation
As we sat at a s roo coreat roohted by the candles on the table before us, was cluttered with a hundred odds and ends that collect in a deserted house--a ladder, a stiff, rusted bridle, a coil of frayed rope, a kettle, a dozen sheets of the Gazette, empty bottles, dusty crockery and broken chairs He surveyed theht have been surrounded by brilliant coht have been in a pot house
I noticed at once what many had been at pains to mention to me before--that my father was not a temperate man Nor did our cellar seem wholly bleak He pressed wine upon esture Brutus to uncork a second And all the while he regaledtable and the vices of a dozen seaports With hardly a pause he described a lurid succession of drinking bouts and gallant adventures He finished a second bottle of wine, and was half way through a third Yet all the while his voice never lost its pleasant modulation Never a flush or an increase of anie hialy exhaustless background of his own experience for illustration He seemed to have known the worst men from all the ends of the earth, to have shared in their business and their pleasures He see that came beneath his notice In retrospect they pleased hilanced at ave hiement that one usually receives froain a bottle It is at the fourth bottle,” he explained, ”that I am at my best It is the fourth bottle, or perhaps the fifth, that seems to free me from the restraints that old habits and early education have wound about me _In vino veritas_, my son, but the truth must be ht be drowned in wine and still be hypocrites, so solidly are their heads placed upon their shoulders But my demands are modest, my son, just as modest as I am a modest sinner”
He called to Brutus to tosshis glass to the light of the flaain with his cool, perfunctory ses have sought fools and charlatans to tell their fortunes, when a little wine is clearer than the most ypt and the Delphic oracle seem as faint, my son, as the echoes in a snail shell
Pal theive a h, and any observer can tell his possibilities
A touch of it--and where are the barriers hich he has surrounded himself? Another drop, and how futile are all the deceptions which he is wont to practice upon others! In St Kitts once I drank ith a most respectable merchant, a man who carried the Bible beside his snuff box, and referred to both almost as frequently as he did to the profit and balance on his ledger And would you believe it? The next time he met me, he blamed me for the loss of many thousands of pounds He even laid at h I could have told hi before either occurred
”But pray do not look at me so blankly, my son It was not clairvoyance on , aided by very excellent and very heady Madeira How true it is that there is truth in wine--and e
”Again--soood luck or bad, but as for me, I can tell how the luck will run by the number of bottles that are placed beside the table A little judg--that is all But doubtless mutual friends have already hinted to you of s Is it not so, entle inflection of the question, or his intent glance that made me feel, as I had felt before that day, that I was face to face with an alert antagonist? He called on me to speak, and I was loth to break hts,--but why should I have expected him to be tactful? Why should I have expected hiossip that clouded his na is still remembered, sir,” I told him ”I have heard of it two months back”
Deliberately he pushed one of the candles aside, so that the light should stand less between us, poured hilass of wine, and flicked the dust from the bottle off his sleeve
”Indeed?” was his coh youthful ie fast Or shall I say it is only another proof of the veracity of athering, someone, whose name I have yet to discover, infora interested at the ti you--let me confir you made some apt retort?”
”Sir,” I said in a voice that sounded strangely discordant, ”I told him he lied”
”Ha!” saidto commend my act, but instead his eyes moved to the table
”Brutus,” he continued, ”islow? Open another bottle, Brutus”
There was a silence while he raised his glass to his lips